My novelty Christmas hat

Last night we took over ten lanes of the bowling alley in Swin for the annual work tournament.

Unfortunately, we picked an evening (and I have no idea whether this happens every evening) when they were doing Cosmic Bowling. This is where they turn all the lights except for the UV off, and play loud music. I assume they do this to make bowling more exciting and attract the youth of Swin. Unfortunately the youth are all hanging around outside wearing chav-hats and hoodies, and the rest of us that just come in to bowl are left wondering what happened to the bowling alley.

A couple of the pins are red, and if a red pin comes up in the number one position you have the chance to win prizes. It's not supposed to happen very often, but it happened to my team five times. Two of them were to me. Not too bad, but another exciting new twist to Cosmic Bowling is the fat guy in a yellow shirt who stands behind you with a microphone and commentates on your attempts. Thus I was mocked -- in front of all 30 lanes -- twice. It does nothing to lift your game, believe me.

I sucked at bowling, by the way. My reasonable performance of eighteen months ago has degraded into something truly abysmal.

Squonky got the men's highest score, and his team won the tournament. Lou got the women's highest score.

I ain't ever going to hear the end of this.